What are the responsibilities and job description for the Founding Engineer position at Tykhe Inc?
Job Title: Founding Engineer Location: San Francisco, CA (On-site – 5 days/week) Employment Type: Full-time
We are seeking a Founding Engineer with 3–5 years of professional software engineering experience to help build AI agents that automate administrative workflows for mission-critical military organizations.
This is a rare opportunity to join as one of their earliest engineers and own major portions of the product from architecture to deployment.
You'll collaborate closely with the founders, interact directly with military users, and shape both the technical roadmap and product direction.
The ideal candidate thrives in fast-paced startup environments, enjoys solving ambiguous problems, ships production-quality software quickly, and wants meaningful ownership through equity.
Key Responsibilities
• Design, build, and maintain end-to-end full-stack applications using modern TypeScript technologies.
• Develop AI-powered workflows, knowledge graph capabilities, and customer-facing product features.
• Build scalable infrastructure that enables customers to configure and manage their own AI agents and workflows.
• Work directly with military customers to gather feedback and rapidly iterate on product improvements.
• Travel approximately once per month to military bases (primarily local to the San Francisco area) to better understand operational workflows and customer needs.
• Own features from concept through deployment, testing, monitoring, and continuous improvement.
• Collaborate closely with founders to prioritize roadmap initiatives and influence overall product strategy. '
• Build scalable backend services, APIs, and cloud infrastructure. • Improve system reliability, observability, and deployment automation.
Required Qualifications • 3–5 years of professional experience as a Full Stack Software Engineer. • proficient in TypeScript, Python, Next.js, Express, Postgres, etc. • Experience building production web applications using Next.js and Express.js. • Strong understanding of backend development and API design. • Experience working with PostgreSQL. • Hands-on experience deploying applications on AWS. • Experience with containerization and orchestration technologies such as Kubernetes. • Familiarity with modern observability and monitoring tools. • Experience integrating or building applications powered by Large Language Models (LLMs). • Excellent problem-solving skills and ability to work independently. • Strong communication skills and willingness to engage directly with customers. • Comfortable working in a fast-moving startup with significant ownership. Preferred Qualifications • Candidate from Defense or Department is highly preference • Experience building AI agents or AI workflow automation platforms. • Experience with knowledge graphs or retrieval systems. •
Familiarity with: Grafana, Loki, Keycloak, Mastra Framework • Experience working with government, defense, or regulated industries. • Strong product mindset with customer-first thinking. • Previous startup or founding engineer experience. Technical Environment: TypeScript, Next.js, Express.js, PostgreSQL, AWS, Kubernetes, Grafana, Loki, Keycloak, Large Language Models (LLMs), Mastra
Interview Process • Behavioral Interview with the CEO (30 minutes) • Technical Interview with the CTO (60 minutes) • Take-Home Technical Assignment (2–4 hours) • Final On-Site Interview (3–4 hours)